AUTHOR'S NOTE - Apologies for the delay in getting this blog up folks. Monday ended up being an incredibly busy day as I bought myself my first car, after passing my driving test last month. I got so tied up with reading paperwork and organising insurance that I wasn't able to finish this episode on schedule. I'll be returning to Monday releases going forward.

Hey there folks. It's time for another dose of Square-Enix/Disney crossover madness as a new episode of the Keyblade Chronicles gets underway. Roll title card!

As always, a quick preamble to remind you that this is the latest episode in a series chronicling my efforts to play through the entire Kingdom Hearts franchise before the release of Kingdom Hearts III in January 2019. We're still pretty close to the start of our adventure, but if you intend to follow along, it's best to start from the beginning. There are handy navigation links at the top of this blog to take you either to the previous episode, or to the main episode hub (which also contains a more in-depth explanation of what this series is and why I'm writing it). If you're all caught up, then by all means read on!

This week's instalment will see us visit the final world in the first group, Tarzan's Deep Jungle, then head back to Traverse Town to move the overall story along. After that we'll tie up a few loose ends and pay another visit to Olympus Coliseum before wrapping up this part of the journey.

Part 10 - In the Jungle, the Terrible Jungle

Last time we were with Sora, Donald and Goofy, they'd just departed from Olympus Coliseum, having defeated Cerberus in the arena and foiled Hades' plan to eradicate Hercules in the process. That leaves just one unexplored location currently charted on the World Select menu, so that's where the newly-dubbed "junior heroes" will be heading next. Being as the worlds are arranged in a circle, this next destination is accessible from either Wonderland or Olympus Coliseum, and both Gummi Ship routes are pretty comparable - they both feature more obstacles that require manoeuvring to avoid, and for the first time enemy ships are equipped with projectile weapons. Even with these extra hurdles, both these routes can be cleared pretty comfortably with the default Kingdom Gummi Ship, so we won't be building a new one just yet.

The final world of this initial set is Deep Jungle, a beautiful green world full of trees and waterfalls. Sora is keen to land here and look for Riku and Kairi, but Donald wants to keep going, sure that the King would never visit such a backwater world. A fight breaks out in the cockpit, Sora seizes the controls, and the Gummi Ship crash lands in the jungle. This scene (and without foreshadowing too much, this whole world) help to establish and develop the friendship dynamic between Sora and Donald. Both characters clearly have their own agendas and believe their respective quests to be more important than that of the other. Hence this argument breaking out. However, there is also a level of respect and friendship between them, even if they're reluctant to acknowledge it. This dynamic plays perfectly into Donald's hot-headed, but ultimately caring character. It's a shame that Goofy is such a non-entity in this trinity by comparison.

Sora wakes up after the crash landing, separated from Donald and Goofy and alone in a rickety old treehouse. He's thrown almost instantly into a fight against a vicious leopard. Although technically a mini-boss, I won't give this fight its own paragraph for two reasons - first, the fight is so short as to be insignificant, and second, we'll be engaging in a proper mini-boss fight with this creature later in the chapter. All that's really worth remarking here is that once again, Sora doesn't have to win the fight for the story to progress, although losing will forfeit some experience. However the fight ends, the leopard is ultimately chased away by the arrival of a wild man wielding a spear. Sora thanks him, and although there appears to be something of a language barrier between the two of them, they're able to introduce themselves to each other. This fellow's name is Tarzan. Sora asks Tarzan if he's seen his friends - initially referring to Donald and Goofy, he quickly changes his mind and asks about Riku and Kairi instead. Again, the language barrier doesn't help here - Tarzan seems to understand what Sora is asking, but can't reply in English, only in gorilla-speak. Hoping Tarzan will be able to lead him to his friends, Sora leaves the Tree House with him.

Meanwhile, Donald and Goofy are elsewhere in Deep Jungle. A gorilla runs past and drops a Gummi block, which catches Donald's attention - maybe the King is here after all? They don't have time to discuss it though, as the gorilla is followed by an imposing man carrying a shotgun. Before we can find out their fate, the action shifts back to Sora and tasks the player with following Tarzan. There are a couple of ways to leave the Tree House, but in this instance I always opt for the most flamboyant - leaping over the edge into the trees below. The reason for this is simple - tree slidin', baby! Deep Jungle features a playable sequence where Sora can slide along tree branches, similar to how Tarzan does in the Disney movie. While not particularly challenging from a gameplay perspective, it's at least something a little bit different (and preferable to navigating Deep Jungle in the conventional way, as we'll soon discover). Later on this sequence becomes a bona fide mini-game, which I'll cover in due course.

Deep Jungle is also the first world in Kingdom Hearts where Sora can choose to swap out either Donald or Goofy for a world-specific guest ally - in this case, that's Tarzan. Generally speaking, I don't usually engage with these world-specific allies in Kingdom Hearts. Aside from the fact that they don't usually have any distinguishing combat features to set them apart, there's also the downside that you can't activate any Trinity marks while using them. For this playthrough, however, I'm going to break that personal rule and make use of them, if only to make this series as comprehensive as possible. In Tarzan's case, he's a physically-oriented character with attack moves comparable to Goofy's, plus unique moves which act as equivalents of the Cure and Aero spells - this is magic I haven't learned yet, which could make him pretty useful as a support character in upcoming fights. His support abilities are geared towards damage dealing, including Berserk (which boosts attack power when HP is critically low) and Critical Plus (which increases the chance of landing a critical hit). When the opportunity comes, I'll be swapping him out for Goofy to keep the party reasonably well-rounded.

Completing the tree sliding route puts Sora and Tarzan at the Porters' campsite. Inside the tent, Sora meets Tarzan's friend Jane and is reunited with Donald and Goofy, who've been escorted here by Clayton, the gun-toting gentleman we saw earlier. Sora and Donald are initially thrilled to see each other and run to meet, before remembering that they're supposed to be mad at each other right now. They both announce that they're staying in Deep Jungle - Sora because Tarzan seems to know where his friends are, and Donald and Goofy on account of the Gummi block discovery. Since they're both staying, they reluctantly agree to work together... "for now!".

Jane seems to think that the key to unlocking what Tarzan is saying in gorilla-speak is to show him some pictures, and see if any of them correspond to what he's thinking of. This is the trigger for yet another fetch quest. See, the slides for her projector have all been lost, and are now scattered around the campsite. Guess it's down to me to find them all then, eh? Maybe it's latent memory from my most recent playthroughs, but this fetch quest doesn't seem quite as bad as the others. All the items are in a single zone of the map, for a start. They also subtly animate by spinning on the spot, making it easier to pick them out against the stationary environment. It's still significantly lacking in both fun and challenge, but at least it wasn't downright aggravating. There are six of the slides to find in total, and once Sora has them all, he can return to Jane and have her pop them into the projector.

While exploring the campsite, players may also engage in a couple of minor puzzles (although as in the previous episode, I feel like I'm being generous by using that word) dotted around the campsite. Various items hold instructions for completing a pair of scientific experiments, and if Sora carries them through, he'll be rewarded with an extra Ether and Hi-Potion. While the recipes imply that a Potion is needed as a base ingredient, I'm pretty sure I had run out of Potions at this point but was still able to complete the experiments. It's a minor distraction, but a cool extra bit of detail nonetheless.

Back in the tent, Jane shows Tarzan her slides. One of them, an image of a castle, stirs up some feelings inside of Sora. Despite having never seen or been to the castle before, it feels familiar to him somehow. For what feels like the thousandth time in this series, all I can say about this is that it's worth remembering, since it ties into something that will happen much later. Sadly, none of the slides have the same effect on Tarzan, and Sora is still none the wiser as to where Riku and Kairi could be. Losing patience, Clayton reasons that if Sora's friends are anywhere, they must be with the gorillas, and demands that Tarzan takes them all to the nesting grounds. Tarzan is reluctant at first, but his trust for Sora wins out and he agrees. (perhaps a little too easily, since we've only been on-world for fifteen minutes?). Sounds like we're going to see the gorillas!

...or at least, we would be if we knew where we were going. If players haven't already found out by now, this is likely the point where they'll realise that Deep Jungle is one of the most poorly-designed levels in all of video games. While each of its individual 'zones' is competently constructed enough to navigate on its own, there's no logical or memorable progression in the way they connect to each other. This means that unless you've memorised the world layout perfectly, it can be difficult to work out which direction to travel in to reach your intended destination. The same was true of Wonderland to an extent, but Wonderland got the other piece of the puzzle right - namely player guidance. The Cheshire Cat was a serviceable guide, his riddles leading the player towards the Lotus Forest or Bizarre Room as appropriate, making sure the next bit of story was never too far out of reach. In Deep Jungle, there is no such guide. Tarzan, the one character who knows the jungle and could have acted in this role, is instead tied up in the party select system and doomed to either follow Sora's aimless wandering or not appear on-screen at all. The final nail in Deep Jungle's navigational coffin is its colour palette, which makes damn sure you're never in a month of Sundays going to spot that one green vine stuck to that equally green backdrop in a completely inconspicuous way, so you can climb it to reach the next area. Moving around Deep Jungle is hell. Even as someone who has played this game five times before and has more than a working knowledge of how this whole world fits together and which transitions trigger which story beats, I recognise that it is a nightmare to traverse. I think that's why this world is so widely cited by players of Kingdom Hearts as their least favourite in the game.

At any rate, our heroes' correct course takes them from the campsite to the Hippos' Lagoon. From there it's up a near-invisible trail of ivy and across a sequence of swinging vines to trigger the next story sequence. Tarzan pleads with Kerchak, the leader of the gorillas, to allow his new friends into their home. Kerchak disapprovingly turns away. At this point the player is expected to return to the Tree House where we started (Donald does suggest as much, in the game's defence), but doesn't give a clear idea of how to get there. Since most players (myself included) will have followed Tarzan in jumping from the Tree House balcony when they first arrived, resulting in what is very much a one-way branch-sliding trip to the campsite, they're essentially being asked to navigate their way back to a landmark they've visited before, but with no frame of reference to do so. In addition to this, after this cutscene, the game respawns the player in a completely different location from where they entered this zone, screwing up their orientation and making navigation even more difficult. Thankfully I'm able to remember that beyond the vines lies more climbable ivy leading to the Climbing Trees, and from there the path to the Tree House can be accessed.

Sora, Donald, Goofy and Tarzan arrive at the Tree House just in time to stop Clayton from shooting Terk, a member of Tarzan's gorilla family. The sly marksman claims he was aiming for a snake that was about to attack the gorilla, but nobody is buying his excuse. Back at the camp (after yet more aimless wandering, since the game never indicates that's where it wants you to go), Clayton parts ways with Jane, Tarzan and the others. In a cutscene that plays out away from any of the heroes, he gets a traditional villain's monologue, confessing his intention to hunt the gorillas. Having checked up on the game's cast, I was surprised to find out that British national treasure Brian Blessed reprised his role as Clayton for Kingdom Hearts, but given Blessed's usual calibre as an actor, I wouldn't have been surprised to learn this was the work of a sound-alike. His performance is another one of those that feels phoned in, with some unnatural intonation that suggests his lines were read individually and out of context from one another.

His tirade is cut short when he's distracted by something in the trees, causing him to anxiously fire his gun. Sora, Donald, Goofy and Tarzan rush out of the tent to investigate, but there's no sign of Clayton anywhere, only a bunch of Heartless. I think Deep Jungle might be the world with the longest combat down-time in all of Kingdom Hearts. From the opening fight with Sabor to here, it's solely exploration (and cruddy exploration at that) with no combat to be had at all. This contributes to making the world feel slow and boring, and is likely another factor in why so many players turn off after reaching Deep Jungle. Slightly more positive are the designs of the Heartless themselves, which in this world have taken the thematic form of monkeys. The burly, hard-hitting Powerwilds and the super-fast Bouncywilds feel like natural fits for Deep Jungle's environments, and the latter in particular pose a unique challenge in the form of avoiding the banana skins they drop. Stepping on one will cause Sora to comically slip, and not-so-comically drop a large amount of Munny, so you have to watch where you place your feet against these tricksy Heartless.

Our next challenge sees Sora and co. exploring the whole of Deep Jungle to rescue Tarzan's gorilla family from the attacking Heartless. Every emancipated ape will gift the party with another Gummi block which can be used later for ship-building. While this combat challenge should ramp up the fun factor of Deep Jungle significantly, it doesn't, and here's why I think this is. First, it involves more aimless running around a world that is already a pain in the backside to navigate. Second, there is no clear indication of when the task is over - most players will only likely realise there are no more gorillas to save after performing several sweeps of Deep Jungle, adding to the frustration factor from the first point. And third, once you're sure you've saved all the gorillas, there's no way of knowing where to head to move the story along until you either stumble across the next event trigger or look it up in a guide. These may all sound like little nitpicks but believe me, the frustration they cause adds up.

There are five gorillas to save in total, and once they're all free, Sora has to return to Jane at the campsite to trigger the next story beat. A note to anyone out there who may be stuck in Deep Jungle - if you're not sure where to go, head back to the tent at the campsite, since that's where most of this world's story stuff unfolds. From here, a gunshot and camera pan direct the player (at last, some competent direction!) to the Bamboo Thicket. There they find Clayton's pipe, abandoned, and a nasty surprise. The leopard from before is back, and ready for a rematch.

Mini-Boss - Sabor - The closest parallel I can draw for the fight with Sabor is the battle against Cloud at Olympus Coliseum. Like Cloud, Sabor is fast, his primary attack is a lunging forward strike, and if it connects you'll feel it. Also like Cloud, his charging pounce leaves him open to attacks from the sides and behind. With a little patience, Sabor can be defeated pretty easily. However, he can also be defeated very easily with almost no patience at all. Players of the Final Mix version who pick the Dream Rod in the opening tutorial should by now have access to Ripple Drive, an area-of-effect combo-finishing move with power tied to Sora's maximum MP. For some reason, this attack triggers a major knockback effect on Sabor, seemingly breaking whatever action he might be in the middle of and sending him hurtling across the Bamboo Thicket. His recovery time from this knockback is, roughly, the amount of time it takes Sora to unleash his standard three-hit combo. This means you can essentially stun-lock Sabor for significant periods of time with a constant barrage of combos ending with Ripple Drive. Using this strategy I had no problems putting the big bad kitty down and claiming my White Fang accessory reward.

After the fight, a brief cutscene from Terk's perspective shows her racing to Jane's tent, past an army of Heartless that have gathered at the campsite. The two characters cower as a dark shadow looms over them. The team arrive to find them missing, and Tarzan senses that they've been taken somewhere near the Tree House (honestly, this little bit of player direction feels like a small mercy after everything that's happened so far). This means another trip via the Hippos' Lagoon and the irksome vines to the Climbing Trees, where Jane and Terk have been trapped behind a plant controlled by the power of darkness. Much like the initial fight with Sabor, this encounter isn't worthy of a mini-boss annotation. The game straight-up tells you that the black fruit hanging from the tree is your target, encouraging you to whack it with your Keyblade from the get-go. The fruit is defended by a team of constantly-spawning Powerwild Heartless, but provided your allies can stay alive long enough to draw their attention, the fruit is easily dealt with.

After being freed, Jane tells Sora and Tarzan that it was Clayton who abducted them and brought them here, and that he must have gone to hunt down the rest of the gorillas. Guess we need to hurry over to where the gorillas are and save them, huh? Except, once again, Kingdom Hearts doesn't tell us where our next destination within Deep Jungle is. Instinctively, players might head back to the vines, up towards the Tree House, or perhaps even the Treetop section, since these are the zones closest to where they saw Tarzan speaking with Kerchak earlier. The actual destination, however, couldn't be further away - the Cliff, past the Bamboo Thicket where we just fought Sabor, at the complete opposite end of the world. Frustrating gameplay logistics aside, this begs the question - how did Jane and Clayton not find the gorillas if they were hiding out just a short walk away, in one of the easiest areas to reach from their campsite? It's certainly something to ponder as I head over there.

On arrival, Clayton has the gorillas hemmed in up against the cliff, pointing his shotgun at them. The arrival of Sora, Donald, Goofy and Tarzan buys them just enough time to escape. Wordlessly, Clayton turns his gun on the team. "Not Clayton!", Tarzan says, repeating his gorilla-speak from before.

BOSS - Clayton/Stealth Sneak - This fight is split up into two distinct stages. The first pits the party against Clayton and a small entourage of Powerwilds. These support Heartless don't respawn and are fairly quickly dealt with, so it's worth getting them out of the way for a little extra experience. Clayton himself doesn't really boast much in the way of attacks. He can shoot you, dealing a moderate amount of damage, but his gunfire is pretty easy to avoid providing you make use of Dodge Roll. As with Sabor, Clayton seems very susceptible to the knockback power of Ripple Drive, making it a good choice for this fight.

After chipping off about a third of his HP, a brief cutscene will play. The cliff crumbles as an invisible monster enters the arena. Clayton hops on its back, and now the real fight begins. Stealth Sneak is, quite literally, a different beast altogether from any other Heartless fought so far. For a start, it has chameleon-like camouflage, enabling it to turn invisible in battle. Mercifully, you can still use the lock-on feature to target Stealth Sneak while it's invisible. It has a variety of attacks that it will unleash while Clayton unloads his shotgun on you simultaneously. Its primary physical attacks are a forwards lunge, which is obviously telegraphed when visible but nigh-impossible to predict when invisible, and a backwards leg kick, which has a less obvious tell and could easily catch players off guard if they try to flank the Heartless. Stealth Sneak can also fire energy balls from its eyes when they begin to glow - these home in on Sora like Trickmaster's fireballs in Wonderland, but thankfully don't travel anywhere near as quickly. Rounding out its attack moves is a wave of fast-moving energy unleashed when it claps its hands together, but which is telegraphed quite openly by its glowing mitts in advance of the attack. Stealth Sneak is a threat from every conceivable angle, and represents the first time I suffered a Game Over in my own current playthrough.

Landing combos on Stealth Sneak will weaken it, eventually causing it to stagger. At this stage one more successful combo will cause the Heartless to throw Clayton off its back, providing an opportunity to land some hits on our actual target. The principal danger here is having to worry about attacks coming from two different angles, since the limitations of the camera make it very difficult to keep an eye on both enemies at once. Clayton will periodically try to heal himself with Potions, but his healing animation can be broken with an attack to keep his HP in check. When his HP drops down to about a third of its total, he'll hop back on the Stealth Sneak once again - simply adopt the same strategy as before to dislodge Clayton again and chip his health down to nothing. It should be noted that focusing on the Stealth Sneak to take it out first is an equally valid option, with the pro of removing one threat and earning some bonus experience countered by the con of spending extra time doing so.

However you choose to end the battle, a concluding cutscene will play showing Clayton being crushed by the collapsing Stealth Sneak. Sora's reward for this is the Cure spell, providing an alternative means of healing to using Potions and Hi-Potions. It has a pretty lengthy wind-up animation that can be interrupted, cancelling the spell, but this negative can be cancelled out in the Final Mix version of the game by equipping the Leaf Bracer ability. This passive ability actually turns Cure's wind-up into a positive, making it uninterruptible and granting Sora a whole bunch of invincibility frames to play with, which can be a total god-send in stressful combat situations. Cure is a very valuable spell, and I'd wager it spends a significant amount of most people's playthroughs loaded permanently in their L1 quick select menu. I'm guilty of over-reliance on Cure myself, and it's a habit I'm keen to try and break in favour of other strategies for this playthrough. For now though, it's going to take Blizzard's place in the quick select, mapped to the L1+Square combination.

Following the fight, the gorillas return. Kerchak has a slightly bizarre way of thanking Sora, throwing him skywards and up onto a ledge newly created by the Stealth Sneak demolishing the cliff face. This new part of Deep Jungle leads to Tarzan's home, the Waterfall Cavern. This one zone causes more problems for Kingdom Hearts' early-2000s camera than any other location in the game up to this point. A narrow corridor behind a waterfall, with awkwardly spaced ledges that demand as much vertical movement as they do horizontal, I fought more with the camera in here than I have with any enemy in the game thus far. It gets stuck under ledges, it gets stuck on top of ledges, it refuses to pass through the waterfall, it shifts perspective without warning as you attempt to make already-awkward jumps... It is appallingly bad. I found the best way to navigate this abomination of a zone was to make frequent use of the first-person camera to adjust my perspective between jumps.

At the deepest part of the Waterfall Cavern, Tarzan leads Sora to the Keyhole of Deep Jungle, the heart of this world. It's here that Jane finally decodes Tarzan's gorilla-speak - he's been trying to say "heart", and that Sora's friends are always with him, in his heart. If he loses his heart, like Clayton did to the Heartless, then he will lose his friends as well. Sora is understandably disappointed by this anticlimactic revelation, but it does teach him a lesson. He and Donald apologise to each other for the way they've been acting since they crashed on this world, and Goofy forces the trio together in a hug of camaraderie. It's a moment that serves to further develop and strengthen the bonds between these three new allies, making their growing friendship more believable to the player, and in that respect it's important for the overall story of Kingdom Hearts, too. Sora seals the Deep Jungle Keyhole, and just like in Wonderland, it releases another strange Gummi block. The scene closes with a slightly awkward suggestion that Terk has a crush on Donald, which is perhaps a little bit more inter-species romance than my mind is willing to take in a post-Sonic '06 world.

Back at Villain HQ, we're treated to another story-progressing cutscene. It seems Maleficent and her circle of bad guys have been keeping an eye on Sora's antics in the jungle. Apparently the Heartless were drawn to Tarzan's world by the darkness in Clayton's heart, and his weakness allowed them to consume him. One of the villainous troupe, revealed to be Jafar from Aladdin, expresses some concern about Sora finding the world's Keyhole, but Maleficent doesn't seem too concerned. She's more preoccupied with their "other plan", one involving "the Princesses". A final cut reveals that Wonderland's Alice is now in their custody, before the action cuts back to our protagonists in Deep Jungle.

As is becoming tradition upon completing worlds, the local inhabitants have some parting gifts for Sora and co.. Tarzan bequeaths the Jungle King keychain to Sora, an attachment for his Keyblade that allows it to take on a different form and new properties. Replacing the Kingdom Key with the Jungle King gives Sora's Keyblade a slightly longer reach and a bit more raw attack power, although it comes at the expense of landing less critical hits. For now, the extra strength is a fair enough trade-off for me to equip it right away. The trio also learn a new Trinity move - Trinity Charge, denoted by Red Trinity marks. This move enables Sora, Donald and Goofy to collectively charge their way through weak walls and other obstacles. There aren't many opportunities to use it, but some are story-critical.

The only thing left to talk about before we re-board the Gummi Ship and leave Deep Jungle behind are the two mini-games located here. The first, which I've already alluded to, is the Jungle Slider mini-game. Once the Keyhole has been locked, it's possible to attempt tree-sliding runs which task you with picking up a number of pieces of fruit along the way. Picking up all the pieces of fruit on one route unlocks the next, and so on, up to a total of five routes. Each of these routes is also timed, and although there's no limit, it does add the optional challenge of trying to beat your best times. Finally there's the Vine Swinging mini-game, which (unsurprisingly) tasks Sora with making it from one end of the vine-filled canopy to the other in the quickest time possible. There are four different "courses" here, although I use the term loosely since all four take place in the same space. What differs is the configuration of vines, with some being replaced by snakes that you can only hold onto for a few seconds before they fall out of the trees, taking you with them. It's a frustrating fail state that forces you to climb all the way back up to the vines for another attempt. While I enjoy the Jungle Slider mini-game for its different approach and moderate challenge, the Vine Swinging isn't worth engaging with beyond adding entries to Jiminy's Journal.

Having exhausted all possibilities here for now, I head for the nearest save point and return to the Gummi Ship. Goofy and Donald have no idea what these strange Gummi blocks might be used for, but they seem to think Leon might know more. Back to Traverse Town we go!

DEEP JUNGLE Thoughts - In terms of fidelity to its source material, I think Deep Jungle is the most successful example of a Disney world being integrated into Kingdom Hearts thus far. Having recently re-watched Tarzan, the first clear indication of this is the visuals. Deep Jungle's environments and vistas are strikingly faithful to the film, with the standout example of this being the gorgeously detailed Tree House environment. The colour palettes are great too, mixing vivid greens, earthy yellows and browns, and brilliant blue skies and waters to evoke the same visual style as the film. The soundtrack is less on-point with that of the film, although that might be for the best given most of Tarzan's original music consists of 80s-sounding pop rock with Phil Collins on singing duties. Yoko Shimomura's original music fits the jungle aesthetic well, with plenty of tribal drums and pan-pipe melodies driving things along. Deep Jungle is without a doubt one of the best worlds in Kingdom Hearts aesthetically, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that it's one of the worst to play.

Tarzan is also a pretty great fit story-wise for the Kingdom Hearts canon, since the film's core themes overlap strongly with those of the game. Both explore themes of identity and friendship, and those parallels are used to drive the world's story, particularly in reference to the growing friendship between Sora, Donald and Goofy. The film also features a touching monologue from mother gorilla Kala about how our hearts are what make us similar, a speech semi-echoed by Tarzan when he talks about the friends in our hearts near the end of the world's storyline. It's a shame more of the film's characters aren't present here - while the core trinity of Tarzan, Jane and Clayton are here, it would have been nice to see Professor Porter too. While I understand the reasoning behind it, since none of the animal characters in Deep Jungle are heard to speak, it's a real shame that Rosie O'Donnell wasn't on hand to provide some VO for Terk.

Deep Jungle marks the first instance of a world having tailor-made Heartless to suit its theme. I pointed this out earlier so I won't regurgitate the specifics, but I do appreciate that extra bit of effort on the designers' part to commit to the theme of the world they're recreating. As a final note, I do think it's a shame that Deep Jungle has never been revisited over the course of the franchise since its appearance in the first game. I understand there are licensing issues between Disney and the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote the book on which the Tarzan film and Deep Jungle world are based. I just feel like there was a lot of potential in this world that was never fully realised, and it's unfortunate the developers never got another crack at the whip. Deep Jungle is rightly remembered as a pretty terrible world, but that doesn't mean it didn't have the potential to be something much more.

Part 11 - Old Town, New Horizons

Returning to Traverse Town, the team begin their search for Leon. A quick chat with Yuffie, who's standing by the postbox in the town square, reveals that he sometimes likes to train in a secret waterway underneath the town. This cryptic message doesn't tell us exactly where to find him, but it is a start and gives us an excuse to re-explore the town. The spawning Heartless have changed slightly, with the introduction of both Large Bodies and several of the mage-type Heartless, including the Thunder-wielding Yellow Opera and the enemy-healing Green Requiem (which need to be prioritised to stop fights becoming drawn-out Cure-fests). While exploring, I decide to pay a quick visit to Pongo and Perdita in the Second District. We've managed to rescue twenty-four of their ninety-nine pups, earning us two generous rewards that turn out to be additional parts for building Gummi Ships.

This latest pass of Traverse Town gives the team their first chances to use their new Trinity Charge ability. There are three Red Trinities up for grabs in town, with one of them being required to open up the Secret Waterway and progress the story. The Trinity mark is situated in some shallow water next to a grate in the Alleyway behind the Dalmatians' House, one of the few bodies of water in Traverse Town and sure to pique the player's curiosity given Yuffie's clue as to Leon's whereabouts. While most of the game swings wildly between explicitly directing the player and leaving them completely stranded, this strikes a rare middle ground between the two, giving the player some helpful clues and allowing them to intuit the solution.

Inside the Secret Waterway the team find not only Leon, but Aerith too. Sora talks to them about the keyholes he encountered in Wonderland and Deep Jungle. Turns out these Keyholes are important enough to warrant proper noun status - every world has one, and it leads to the heart of that world. It's these Keyholes that the Heartless are seeking in each world - by entering the Keyholes, they can penetrate to the core of each world and corrupt it with darkness, just like what happened with Destiny Islands at the start of the game. Leon and Aerith both stress to Sora the importance of sealing these Keyholes while travelling to other worlds. On the subject of the Gummi blocks, however, they're less talkative. Aerith suggests speaking with Cid over at the Accessory Shop in the First District. Before Sora leaves, Leon gifts him Earthshine, a mysterious stone. He's not sure what it's for, but hopefully its purpose will become clear soon enough.

Back at the Accessory Shop, the team show Cid the Gummi blocks they've found. He identifies them almost immediately as Navigation Gummis, special Gummi blocks which will enable their ship to travel to new worlds beyond even Deep Jungle. I've always appreciated the way Kingdom Hearts accommodates Cid's existing history as an airship pilot in Final Fantasy VII by making him an expert on Gummi ships in this alternate universe. It lends a consistency to his character, making him even more recognisable to Final Fantasy fans. Cid offers to install them on the ship in exchange for a favour. Cid has recently finished restoring a tattered old book for one of the Traverse Town residents, and wants us to deliver it. His directions point us towards a door with a red flame on it, somewhere in the Third District. Sora is only too happy to oblige. From fetch quests to delivery boy - at last, we're moving up in the world!

The flame-adorned door in the Third District won't budge at first, but using a Fire spell on it will grease the hinges and allow Sora to pass through. Behind the door is a cave filled with water, and on an island in the centre stands an odd little cottage. Presumably this is where we're supposed to deliver the book, but there's nobody home right now. Sora starts hearing Kairi's voice, saying the empty room reminds her of the Secret Place back on Destiny Islands. Goofy snaps him out of his hallucination, just in time to see a blue-robed wizard arrive. This is Merlin, and it sounds like he's been expecting us. It turns out Merlin has been in contact with the King, who asked him to train the Key Bearer in the art of magic. Before any training can begin, however, the cottage needs furnishing! In a knowing nod to The Sword in the Stone, a cutscene plays showing Merlin conjuring all of his furniture out of his travel bag. In no time at all, the once-empty room is fully furnished. It turns out Merlin's not the only one here, either - the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella is also residing in Traverse Town, and offers to help the team on their journey as well. Quite what she's doing hiding in Merlin's travel bag disguised as a model carriage is anyone's guess.

With the niceties out of the way, Sora hands over the book to Merlin, who accepts it gratefully and places it on a lectern at the edge of the room. He explains that he doesn't know where the book came from, or what it's about, but he's sure that it holds a great secret. Unfortunately, nobody knows what that secret is, because most of its pages are missing (clearly Cid's restoration work wasn't comprehensive). Maybe if we can find all the missing pages, we'll be able to unlock the secret of the book? I smell a side quest!

Merlin directs us over to the Fairy Godmother, who seems to know something about the Earthshine stone that Leon gave to us earlier. It turns out it's a Summon Gem - the residual spirit of a strong-hearted individual whose world was consumed by darkness. The inconsistencies here have bothered me in recent playthroughs - if this is the fate of strong-hearted people whose worlds are swallowed by darkness, then why didn't Sora become a Summon Gem? Why isn't anyone else in Traverse Town a Summon Gem? How did all of these people escape their worlds with their physical forms intact? One of many questions I'll likely never learn the answer to. With a wave of her wand, the Fairy Godmother releases the spirit trapped inside the stone, giving the team access to their first Summon spell - The Lion King's Simba.

I'll admit up-front that I've never really engaged much with the Summons in Kingdom Hearts. They've always felt more like a novelty to me, an expensive waste of valuable MP to achieve something I could otherwise do much quicker with an attack, spell or item. The fact you have to sacrifice having other allies on the field to make use of them is a major turn-off for me, and since most of the game's biggest combat challenges happen in an environment where you're not allowed to use them, they're never really viable as a crutch either. As with alternative allies, though, I'm determined to immerse myself in every mechanic of the game this time around, and so I'll be making a conscious effort to use Summons more often. Simba is an offensive Summon, costing 2MP to activate and dealing area-of-effect damage with his Proud Roar attack. The damage dealt is determined by a Charge gauge which fills while the Triangle button is held down and empties when Simba roars. It's a useful attack that I could see being useful for crowd control in confined spaces.

As the team leave Merlin's house and return to the Third District, they're beset by another Heartless attack. Before Sora can even think about attacking, the enemies are wiped out in a flurry of swordplay, and standing in their place is none other than Riku! Sora is thrilled beyond belief to see his old friend from home, and Riku seems pretty pleased too. Sadly there's still no sign of Kairi, but Riku seems optimistic that she made it off the island too and is probably looking for both of them as they speak. Riku is clearly keen to re-establish himself as more senior than Sora, but there's too much going against him in this situation - not only is Sora travelling with new friends, he has also been chosen by the Keyblade to be its bearer. When a genuinely thrilled Sora invites Riku to join them on their world-hopping quest, Donald is quick to shoot the idea down. In the argument that ensues, Riku disappears. Sora is disappointed that his friend took off without joining them, but is also glad to know that he's doing okay.

This cutscene is another of my personal favourites as it displays a lot of shifting character dynamics - first Sora's disbelief at being reunited with his friend, followed by more of the established rivalry between them, and the first traces of jealousy forming in Riku after seeing Sora wielding the Keyblade. This seems like the perfect time to mention that although I don't dislike Sora as a character, I do vastly prefer Riku's character arc in this game, and this is the first hint as to why. His position within the narrative, and consequently his feelings and his development as a character, are much more complex than those of Sora. It's these flaws - his jealousy, his pride - that ultimately send him down a very different path from Sora, and while I don't want to get too deep into it right now, I at least want to acknowledge it for the time being. I'll certainly be referring to it again in future episodes.

With nothing else to do, Sora heads to the previously vacant house in the Third District where he agreed to meet Cid after delivering the book. On Sora's arrival, Cid asks if he's ever heard of Maleficent. She's a witch, and apparently the one responsible for the current crop of Heartless attacking Traverse Town, as well as the Heartless invasion that destroyed the Final Fantasy characters' home world nine years ago. Cid reveals that he managed to escape with Leon, Yuffie and Aerith on his Gummi Ship before their world was completely consumed. Leon explains that the ruler of their world, a man named Ansem, had been studying the Heartless and compiled a report from his findings (this, of course, is nothing new - Aerith revealed this on our first visit to Traverse Town). Cid theorises that the report might contain information on how to stop the Heartless for good, but fears that most of its pages are in the clutches of Maleficent.

Meanwhile, the camera cuts outside, where Riku is looking in through the window at Sora. At his side is Maleficent, the very witch we've just been warned about, whispering corrupting ideas into Riku's ear. She tells him that Sora has abandoned him in favour of new friends and invites him to join her, promising that she'll help him to find what he's looking for. As an extension of the previous cutscene, this moment is instrumental in the path Riku is going to take from here on out - full of jealousy and frustration towards Sora and desperate to find Kairi, Maleficent's offer appeals to the weaker part of his heart. Couple this with Riku's willingness to be consumed back on Destiny Islands and it doesn't take a genius to work out that perhaps our silver-haired friend isn't going to prove quite as resilient as Sora in the face of the allure of darkness.

Back indoors, Cid tells the team that the Navigation Gummi is installed and ready to go. He's also installed a Warp Gummi, permitting fast-travel to any previously visited world without needing to re-complete the Gummi Ship route. Before he leaves, Aerith and Yuffie ask Sora to check out the bell on top of the Gizmo Shop - there's supposedly a legend related to ringing the bell three times. Since we're here, we may as well investigate. The Gizmo Shop is located in the Second District - a brightly-coloured indoor environment filled to the brim with waves of Heartless, it's another location in which the camera does not perform well. There are a lot of alcoves and ledges that it can get caught in, on and around, making clearing the enemies within a pretty frustrating exercise (but also a very lucrative one in terms of experience).

Through the other side of the Gizmo Shop is a ladder that leads to the roof. The bell is boarded up, but can be accessed with a Trinity Charge. Ringing the bell will cause the mosaic behind the water feature in the Second District to rotate, and doing so three times will reveal the Keyhole for Traverse Town. Sora hops down from the roof of the Gizmo Shop and prepares to seal the Keyhole, but a nearby Heartless has other ideas...

BOSS - Opposite Armor - After an initial fake-out battle which makes you think you're fighting Guard Armor again, its hands and feet switch places and change shape, creating something altogether more terrifying. While Opposite Armor looks like nothing more than a reconfigured Guard Armor and the concept of the fight is very similar, the specifics are changed up just enough to make this feel like a whole different fight. Opposite Armor's movements are much more unpredictable than Guard Armor's, with much shorter wind-up animations and much more damage output. New to its arsenal for this fight is a devastating flying charge attack, which can quickly turn things sour if it connects with our fragile Sora.

As I said, the basic concept of this fight is very similar to the Guard Armor battle - each individual part of the Armor has its own HP gauge, with the most important one being attached to the torso. As before, it's best to go for the "hands" first, since they have the lowest HP reserves. Once they're out of the way, the "feet" can be focused on. After losing some of its parts, the Opposite Armor will adopt a new strategy - turning its torso into an energy cannon and firing huge homing balls of darkness at Sora and co.. These are difficult to dodge but won't travel through cover, so the two-tiered environment of the Second District can be used to your advantage (one of the few instances in Kingdom Hearts where the environment plays a meaningful role in combat). Flanking the cannon-torso will enable you to wail on it and finish the fight in relative safety.

Our reward for defeating this pile of rust is a new spell - Aero. As a kid, this was a spell I never used, likely because my familiarity with Final Fantasy spells probably led me to expect offensive magic. Instead, the Aero spells in Kingdom Hearts are more akin to Protect, Shell and Reflect, putting up a barrier around Sora which reduces the damage he takes from enemy attacks. Now, as an adult with a much better understanding of strategy in Japanese RPGs, I can see the merits of the Aero spell. Being able to take more punishment from hard-hitting opponents will be a major factor in improving my survivability in this Proud difficulty playthrough. It still kind of sucks that it costs a whopping 2MP to use, though.

With nothing else to stand in his way, Sora seals the Traverse Town Keyhole. Another piece of a Navigation Gummi lands at his feet, and... we're kind of done here for now, I guess? There's no real come-down from this, no world-concluding cutscene in the style that the player has probably come to expect by now. We're just dropped back in Traverse Town to either run around or leave. The Final Fantasy crew don't even have anything nice to give us for all the trouble we just went through. Given we have that new Navigation Gummi installed, we should probably head back to the World Select screen. Before that though, I've got a spot of light reading to do.

Part 12 - In Which Sora Meets a New Friend

Instead of leaving Traverse Town right away, I head back to Merlin's Study in the Third District. My objective is the repaired book that we delivered earlier. On opening the book, Sora finds himself shrunk down and transported onto its very pages! I'm now in a world that's very unique in the context of Kingdom Hearts - the Hundred Acre Wood. It plays very differently from other worlds, in that the gameplay is centred much more on mini-games than conventional exploration, and there's no combat at all. Sora is free to run across the book's pages, although right now most points of interest are completely blank - these represent the missing pages that we're probably going to end up finding at some point. There is one place we can go to right away, however - a clearing, with a log right in the middle of it.

It's here that Sora meets a stuffed toy bear, who's sitting on the log and thinking hard about something. When Sora asks him what he's thinking about, the bear says that he's trying to work out how to say goodbye to Pooh. It of course turns out that Pooh is the bear and the bear is Pooh - Winnie the Pooh, or Pooh for short. He explains that all of his friends who live in the Hundred Acre Wood have disappeared, and are nowhere to be found. This leads Pooh to believe that he will likely disappear as well, and before he does, he needs to work out how to say goodbye to himself. Still thinking, he wanders off in the direction of his house, looking for a small smackerel of honey to eat.

Following Pooh to his house, I have the opportunity to pick up a few useful healing items. Unfortunately I don't have the opportunity to move the story along here any further right now - Pooh's friend Owl arrives on the scene to explain that in order to read what happens next, Sora will need to recover the book's missing pages. Much like the ninety-nine dalmatian puppies, these have been scattered across multiple worlds, and it's going to take a bit of leg-work to find them. Since I don't currently have any of these Torn Pages, it looks like I won't be returning to the Hundred Acre Wood any time soon. Back on the open pages, I use the nearby save point to leap out of the book and return to Merlin's Study.

I realise there isn't a great deal to say about the content of the Hundred Acre Wood world at this point, but I wanted to include it in this week's blog all the same. There's a real aesthetic charm and authenticity to everything about it which I can't help but love. It stays remarkably true to Disney's adaptation of Winnie the Pooh, with the world being accessed through a book in much the same way that the Disney films use books to frame and accentuate the presentation of their stories. Pooh is written with the same child-like charm and innocence of his on-screen counterpart, and the world's music is a bespoke arrangement of the classic Winnie the Pooh theme song (from the 1977 film, not from the Saturday morning cartoon series, although that would be equally fantastic). This world is so beautifully curated that I couldn't wait another three or four weeks to acknowledge it.

Now having truly exhausted all the possibilities open to us in Traverse Town, it's time to move on to new worlds...

Part 13 - Trials of the Hero, Pt. I

...or at least, it would be if Chip and Dale didn't pop up over the World Select screen to announce the start of a tournament being held at Olympus Coliseum. This gives us a perfect opportunity to test out the new Warp Gummi from Cid, bypassing the Gummi Ship route between Traverse Town and our next destination.

Over the course of Kingdom Hearts, Sora and co. will be summoned back to the Coliseum at regular intervals to participate in various tournaments. These tournaments make up a significant chunk of Kingdom Hearts' side content and are pure combat challenges, pitting the team against successive groups of enemies in arena-based fights. The vast majority of these will take place in a featureless square zone, although a couple of fights against larger enemies will utilise the whole arena including the seating on either side. While use of magic and items is permitted, no Summons can be called within the Coliseum. If Sora gets knocked out at any point then the challenge ends prematurely, and the player must start over from the beginning, although there is no Game Over or any other penalty imposed. Winning the tournaments rewards the player with useful items and new abilities, so it's worth returning to Olympus Coliseum whenever a new tournament begins to pick these rewards up. That's the approach I'll be taking with this playthrough.

The first tournament is the Phil Cup, an entry-level challenge consisting of nine consecutive fights against various groups of Heartless. Their rosters consist of familiar types of enemies from the worlds we've already been to - mainstay Shadows, armoured Soldiers, rotund Large Bodies, unpredictable Powerwilds, and the four main types of mage Heartless, all in various configurations. In some of these fights, Sora will also have to face off against different parts of the Guard Armor - Hammerlegs (the feet), Gauntlets (the hands), and in the final battle of the cup, Armored Torso (the head and body). Ultimately none of these enemies pose any great threat, partly because I'm familiar with them all by now, and partly because I've levelled to a point where most of these early Heartless are fairly quick to fall.

My reward for beating the Phil Cup is a new spell, Gravity. Similar to the Demi and Gravity spells from the Final Fantasy series, the damage dealt by this offensive spell isn't determined by Sora's magical strength, but as a percentage of the total HP of the targeted enemy. Simply put, the more HP an enemy has, the more damage it will deal. This makes it particularly effective against Heartless with sizeable HP bars like Large Bodies. In Proud difficulty, where Sora's attacks do less damage per hit, being able to score a reliable chunk of damage on these kinds of enemies is going to prove invaluable, especially when we move on to the next world. Sadly the spell doesn't have any effect on bosses or boss-like enemies, whose mammoth HP bars must be whittled down fair and square.

Beating a tournament at the Coliseum isn't the end of the challenge. Clearing a cup for the first time will unlock a solo challenge, tasking Sora with battling through the same sequence of fights alone, without the support of Donald and Goofy. Most of the extra difficulty in this mode comes from a greater barrage of enemy attacks, since Donald and Goofy aren't present to draw the attention of the Heartless away from Sora. It takes me a couple of attempts, but I'm able to beat the Phil Cup solo and earn a Combo Plus ability (which extends my basic combo from three hits to four) for my trouble. Those who master the solo challenge will unlock a time trial challenge, which reintroduces Donald and Goofy to the mix but places a three-minute timer on screen and tasks the player with winning all nine battles of the cup before it runs out. This proves too much for me at this relatively early stage in the game, and I step away from it after three failed attempts. Something to attempt the next time we come back, I suppose. It's worth noting that once the time trial challenge is beaten, players can choose to re-battle any individual group of enemies from the tournament's nine rounds.

With the Phil Cup cleared, it's time to load up the Gummi Ship with our spoils and finally set off to one of the new destinations revealed by the newly-installed Navigation Gummi. What lies beyond the swirling portals that have appeared on the World Select screen? There's only one way to find out...

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And so another episode of the Keyblade Chronicles comes to an end. Once again, apologies for the delay in bringing this one to you, and as always, thanks very much to those of you who are reading this series. Putting together Episode Two last week caused me to have some serious doubts about the sustainability of this feature going forward, but the positive feedback left me feeling a lot better about it and I'm looking forward to continue sharing my experiences of this crazy franchise with all of you. If you have any thoughts of your own to share on this part of the game, or indeed about Kingdom Hearts in general, please sound off in the comments below. The Keyblade Chronicles will be back to its regular schedule next Monday with trips to a desert city, a wondrous cave, and even the belly of a whale. Until then, take care folks, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (PS4)

Can't wait to read this week's episode! Last week you posed a question about the length of these and if you should make them longer to strive to finish the series before KH3. I'm fully on board with that, but not if it'll burn you out. I'll be right there with ya trying to get through this full series before the end of January. Cheers!

This is a real nostalgia blast. Thanks again!